Dave Foley returns to Canadian TV in ‘Spun Out’ by Greg David

Veteran comic actor Dave Foley toplines CTV's newest homegrown comedy

Source: The Loop

Dave Foley doesn’t feel like an old guy, even though some members of the media have referred to him as a “veteran funnyman.”

“You never think of yourself as a veteran until you are,” Foley told TV Guide Canada from the Toronto set of CTV’s new original sitcom, Spun Out. “I remember the first time I read ‘veteran funnyman’ in an article and I thought, ‘Oh, that means old comic.’ I still feel like a young punk upstart.”

The Toronto-area “punk upstart” is back on Canadian television in the network’s midseason offering, which spotlights the outrageous clients and staff at DLPR–Dave Lyons Public Relations. Foley is Dave Lyons, a grizzled industry veteran surrounded by a motley crew of staff that includes daughter Stephanie Lyons (Rebecca Dalton, The L.A. Complex), smarmy Nelson Abrams (Al Mukadam, Radio Free Roscoe), Dave’s assistant Bryce McBradden (J.P. Manoux, Community), weirdo Gordon Woolmer (Darcy Michael, Just for Laughs: All Access) and newest member of the DLPR team Beckett Ryan (Paul Campbell, Almost Heroes). Abby Hayes (Holly Deveaux, Less than Kind) is Beckett’s ex-girlfriend and current roommate.

Thursday’s pilot episode–the first in a two-night roll-out that continues with Episode 2 in Spun Out‘s regular Friday timeslot–serves to introduce the characters to viewers as Nelson tries to score a job for a desperate Beckett.

Foley was anxious to get back into sitcoms–especially a multi-camera project like Spun Out–because he missed the lifestyle surrounding it. Rehearsing scripts for a week and then performing it live on a Friday night in front of an audience gets his creative juices flowing and hearkens back to earlier projects like The Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio.

“This reminds me a lot of my NewsRadio days,” he said wistfully. “Everyone feels like they’re all in on something together. A lot of shows don’t feel that way.”

The writer, producer and director noted that he got a call about starring in the project, but wasn’t sure if he would be able to do it and wondered if it would even be funny.

“I looked at the first episode script and it was a good script,” he recalled. “Which was a surprise. Eighty per cent of the scripts you read you get to Page 5 and say, ‘I can’t finish this.’”

Yet Foley said his co-stars have quickly caught on to the rush of performing live, including the constant re-writes leading up to–and during–filming, and the occasional flubs.

“Because I’ve spent so much time memorizing scripts for pilot season, my brain is pretty conditioned to memorize stuff quickly,” Campbell told TVGC. “It’s nice to have fresh stuff every day. Sometimes it’s fun to throw a take. The second that you screw up in front of the audience, they realize it’s something special that has happened just with this group. We’re all in this together.”